Press Releases

NAEYC Radio presents…

Why Playful Learning is More Effective

(Washington, D.C.) – This month’s NAEYC Radio will feature a segment on the effectiveness of playful learning in preschools with Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., an award-winning education professor at the University of Delaware. There are currently many misconceptions, both within and outside the early childhood education field, about what play is, how it operates as a vehicle for child learning, which play is a more effective way to learn than others, and what the adult’s role in facilitating child play is.

Rae Pica and Mark R. Ginsberg address these topics with Dr. Golinkoff in this month’s segment of NAEYC Radio, a program brought to you by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the BAM Radio Network.

In this segment, Dr. Golinkoff describes how play and learning must be compatible to achieve best results in all children in a preschool setting. She describes playful learning as “planting the seeds of lifelong learning and enjoyment for children.” A classroom is using playful learning if “kids are having a good time and seem to be engaged and there is a learning topic at hand,” she said. The key, however, is that children don’t even realize they are learning skills like counting and phonics.

Dr. Golinkoff will also be presenting at NAEYC’s 18th National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development this month in Charlotte, NC. She will be presenting at a session titled, “Play Power: Preparing 21st Century Children for a Global World.”

Dr. Golinkoff holds the H. Rodney Sharp Chair in the School of Education at the University of Delaware and is a member of the Departments of Psychology and Linguistics. She is also the director of the University of Delaware Infant Language Project.

The BAM Radio Network was originally launched as a resource for parents, aimed at delivering the most reliable information on early childhood development and developmentally appropriate parenting to busy moms and dads. Created by leading early childhood experts, the programming quickly became a popular resource among teachers and educators and was expanded to include an Educators' Channel.

Founded in 1926, the National Association for the Education of Young Children has nearly 90,000 members worldwide. The association is the largest and most influential voice for early childhood education professionals and the field of early childhood education in the United States.